Improve My Business

As many parts of the country prepare for back-to-school, moms and dads are mentally preparing to do battle with their kids over the need to set school routines – get to bed at a reasonable time, get up at a reasonable time, get cleaned up and ready for school; schedule their extracurricular activities; and set aside time to do their homework.

All of these point to the need for a routine – what time to eat meals, do work, have down time, etc. Are routines really necessary?

Consider two people who do a job regularly – one who has a routine, and one who doesn’t. The person with the routine may forget a step less often, or notice when an input material is running low better than the person who doesn’t have a routine, simply because they do the same thing every time in the same order. Folks with routines may or may not have them documented; however, the routine if designed well should provide them with a higher chance of getting a consistent result.

The routine is not the tool for efficiency, however; notice the last statement – the routine if designed well should provide them with a higher chance of getting a consistent result. This doesn’t say that it gives us a ‘good’ result; just that the result will be consistent. This is where process improvement comes in. You can analyze your routine to determine if it meets your needs, and if it meets your needs effectively. Let’s look at your morning commute. If your commute gets you to work on time 95% of the time, it’s probably a good routine. If it gets you to work 50% on time, although it may be ritualized, it’s not necessarily meeting your needs, so it a good candidate for improvement efforts. You need to analyze why you are late – is it because you routinely forget something and need to go back for it? Lay it out or put it in your briefcase the evening before. Is it because traffic is unpredictable? Keep a record of on-time arrival vs. leave time – perhaps a shift of 10 mins will affect this positively (that’s certainly true here in Austin, where a 10 minute delay can often mean arriving 30-40 mins later due to traffic). Do you stop for a coffee or breakfast on your way in? Does that sometimes delay you? See if your local shop will have your order ready at a set time every day and allow you to bypass the lines… perhaps even pay a week in advance so that no money needs to change hands daily. Do your significant other, children, pets, or co-workers impact you? See if you can figure out a way to minimize the impacts? Sure, there are going to be times when we spill something on our shirt, a fender bender ties up traffic, or your carpool buddy is running late; but if we work to minimize the normal reasons for delays, these ‘special’ causes should be rare.

Technorati Tags: back to school, efficiency, routines, Time Management

There is a lot of positive press lately for green initiatives – you know, doing something that not only makes sense from a business standpoint, but is also environmentally friendly? Everything from hybrid cars, to turbine power, to solar cells, is getting some press.

Consider that process improvement is also a tool in the green toolbox – after all, if you are working to become more efficient, that promotes using the minimum… and if you are efficient, you will be more competitive, so you have a better chance of being, and staying, productive in your industry.

The next time that management is considering which green tool to champion, remind them that process improvement is the best green tool since it takes product quality, minimization of resources, employee innovation, and customer satisfaction into account.

Technorati Tags: enviornment, green business, green initiative, process improvement

I found this interesting article on deadlines by Dorene Lehavi, Ph.D. Reading this article helped me realize it’s not enough to complete a task by a set deadline, but that you should plan ahead better to successfully reach your deadline without stressing. Here is the article from Woopidoo.com:

When I told my friend Maxim (pronounced Maxeem) that I was working against a deadline, he blurted in his adorable French accent, “Whazat mean?” He continued, “You gonna be dead if you don’t make it? The sun will stop shining? The birds will stop singing? The trees will stop growing?” Well, that certainly put me in my place, and as Maxim always does, he moved me from anxiety to laughter.

Maxim told me he knew of no other culture which uses such a severe word as DEADline to indicate the time when something is due. So I decided to check it out. I ran to my Larousse, which indeed seemed to struggle with a translation. It gave two words for deadline; date and limit. Eva from Argentina couldn’t come up with any Spanish word even close to deadline. And my friend, Radomir said in Serbian the word means “the ending time”. In Hebrew the translation was last season. Other cultures seem to take life easier than we do; they have softer words and concepts and give some leeway.

Maxim who is now retired, but had a career here in the US, says he never experienced a deadline. He never missed a day of work and never missed doing anything that was expected of him. He always arrived early to work and planned his day so that he finished early. And, I might add, I never met a person with a better sense of joie de vivre. He made sure good times were part of each day.

A friend needed to drive to San Francisco from Los Angeles to take care of some things for his mother one weekend. He left a lot of work on his desk before setting out, so he spent the trip there thinking about when he’d get to his mother’s (one deadline), and on the return trip he obsessed about the work left unfinished at home (more deadlines). He completely missed the journey because he remained in a state of anxiety by focusing all his attention on deadlines. What a shame as the Pacific Coast Highway is one of the most beautiful drives in the world.

How about reevaluating your deadlines?

Plan better. Think ahead about the deadlines you have and those you set for others. Is there a way you can soften them? Break them into smaller steps and write them in your calendar.

Reward yourself for the small steps you complete and show appreciation to others who complete the task you asked of them.

I invite you to have some fun with me! Ask everyone you know from another culture or who knows another language to tell you the translation of the word “deadline”. Email the answers to me and I’ll compile a list to share.

Don’t just email Dorene Lehavi, share your comments and translations right here as well!

Technorati Tags: deadlines, efficiency, Time Management